Monday, May 4, 2009

Train of Tranquility

For the past two and a half days I have been at the Pediatric Academic Societies meetings in Baltimore, MD. For two and a half days, I have had to be “on” from pretty much the moment I wake up until I go to bed (which has been well after midnight every night). I discussed a paper I’m working on while on the elliptical, connected with old colleagues in line for coffee, etc., etc. My brief respite was dinner at my Aunt and Uncles on Saturday night, a meal of great hilarity as we participated in what my cousin calls “full contact dining- bring your armor and your wit, or you’ll be either torn apart or left behind” I love my family. Anyway, point being- I’m exhauseted. The kind of exhausted where you are on sensory overload and a little amped on caffeine to get through my 7 am breakfast meeting today. The kind of exhausted where you’ve been rushing from point A to point B for so many days, you forget how to stop.

So, when I arrived at the Amtrak station to get on my train to New York for my biannual check up and saw there was a quiet room, I made a beeline. The trip from Baltimore to NYC aboard the express train took slightly less than three hours. For three hours, I sat in blissful silence broken only by the conductor announcing the next city. I napped, I read, I wrote, I stared out the window. Ah, such bliss before the sensory assault that is New York City.